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Asparagus officinalis
Wild Asparagus in Austria
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
Order:	Asparagales
Family:	Asparagaceae
Genus:	Asparagus
Species:	A. officinalis
Binomial name
Asparagus officinalis L.

Asparagus officinalis is a flowering plant species in the genus Asparagus from which the vegetable known as asparagus is obtained. It is native to most of Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. It is now also widely cultivated as a vegetable crop.

Biology

Asparagus is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 100-150 cm tall, with stout larissa stems with much-branched feathery foliage. The 'leaves' are in fact needle-like cladodes (modified stems) in the axils of scale leaves; they are 6–32 mm long and 1 mm broad, and clustered 4–15 together. The flowers are bell-shaped, greenish-white to yellowish, 4.5–6.5 mm long, with six tepals partially fused together at the base; they are produced singly or in clusters of 2-3 in the junctions of the branchlets. It is usually dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants, but sometimes hermaphrodite flowers are found. The fruit is a small red berry 6–10 mm diameter. Green asparagus is eaten worldwide, commonly with eggs in China and with beef in Britain. It is not considered a delicacy as it is very cheap and easy to obtain. This does not hold for white asparagus, see below. These are considered a popular but expensive May-June seasonal delicacy in northwest Europe, locally nicknamed "white gold".

Plants native to the western coasts of Europe (from northern Spain north to Ireland, Great Britain, and northwest Germany) are treated as Asparagus officinalis subsp. prostratus (Dumort.) Corb., distinguished by its low-growing, often prostrate stems growing to only 30–70 cm high, and shorter cladodes 2–18 mm long. It is treated as a distinct species Asparagus prostratus Dumort. by some authors.

History

Asparagus has been used from very early times as a vegetable and medicine, owing to its delicate flavour and diuretic properties. There is a recipe for cooking asparagus in the oldest surviving book of recipes, Apicius’s third century AD De re coquinaria, Book III. It was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who ate it fresh when in season and dried the vegetable for use in winter. It lost its popularity in the Middle Ages but returned to favour in the seventeenth century.

Uses

Culinary

Only the young shoots of asparagus are eaten.

Asparagus is low in calories, contains no fat or cholesterol, and is very low in sodium. It is a good source of folic acid, potassium, dietary fiber, and rutin. The amino acid asparagine gets its name from asparagus, the asparagus plant being rich in this compound.

The shoots are prepared and served in a number of ways around the world. In Asian-style cooking, asparagus is often stir-fried. Cantonese restaurants in the United States often serve asparagus stir-fried with chicken, shrimp, or beef, also wrapped in bacon. Asparagus may also be quickly grilled over charcoal or hardwood embers. It is also used as an ingredient in some stews and soups. In the French style, it is often boiled or steamed and served with hollandaise sauce, melted butter or olive oil, Parmesan cheese or mayonnaise. The best asparagus tends to be early growth (meaning first of the season) and is often simply steamed and served along with melted butter. Tall, narrow asparagus cooking pots allow the shoots to be steamed gently, their tips staying out of the water.

Asparagus can also be pickled and stored for several years. Some brands may label them as "marinated" which means the same thing.

The bottom portion of asparagus often contains sand, and as such thorough cleaning is generally advised in cooking asparagus.

Medicinal

Asparagus rhizomes and root is used ethnomedically to treat urinary tract infections, as well as kidney and bladder stones. Asparagus is also believed to have aphrodisiac properties (this belief is at least partially due to the phallic shape of the shoots).

Ingestion of asparagus may bring on an attack of gout in certain individuals due to the high level of purines.

Cultivation

Since asparagus often originates in maritime habitats, it thrives in soils that are too saline for normal weeds to grow in. Thus a little salt was traditionally used to suppress weeds in beds intended for asparagus; this has the disadvantage that the soil cannot be used for anything else. 'Crowns' are planted in winter, and the first shoots appear in spring; the first pickings or 'thinnings' are known as sprue asparagus. Sprue have thin stems.

White asparagus, known as spargel, is cultivated by denying the plants light and increasing the amount of ultraviolet light the plants are exposed to while they are being grown. Less bitter than the green variety, it is very popular in the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany where 57,000 tonnes (61% of consumer demands) are produced annually.

Purple asparagus differs from its green and white counterparts, having high sugar and low fibre levels. Purple asparagus was originally developed in Italy and commercialised under the variety name Violetto d'Albenga. Since then, breeding work has continued in countries such as the United States and New Zealand.

Companion planting

Asparagus is a useful companion plant for tomatoes. The tomato plant repels the asparagus beetle, as do several other common companion plants of tomatoes, meanwhile asparagus may repel some harmful root nematodes that affect tomato plants.

Commercial production

As of 2007, Peru is the world's leading asparagus exporter, followed by China and Mexico. The top asparagus importers (2004) were the United States (92,405 tonnes), followed by the European Union (external trade) (18,565 tonnes), and Japan (17,148 tonnes). The United States' production for 2005 was on 218.5 km² (54,000 acres) and yielded 90,200 tonnes, making it the world's third largest producer, after China (5,906,000 tonnes) and Peru (206,030 tonnes). US production was concentrated in California, Michigan, and Washington. The crop is significant enough in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region that the city of Stockton holds a festival every year to celebrate it, as does the city of Hart, Michigan, complete with a parade and asparagus queen.

Vernacular names and etymology

Asparagus officinalis is widely known simply as "asparagus", and may be confused with unrelated plant species also known as "asparagus", such as Ornithogalum pyrenaicum known as "Prussian asparagus" for its edible shoots.

The English word "asparagus" derives from classical Latin, but the plant was once known in English as sperage, from the Medieval Latin sparagus. This term itself derives from the Greek aspharagos or asparagos, and the Greek term originates from the Persian asparag, meaning "sprout" or "shoot".

Asparagus was also corrupted in some places to "sparrow grass"; indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary quotes John Walker as having written in 1791 that "Sparrow-grass is so general that asparagus has an air of stiffness and pedantry". In Gloucestershire and Worcestershire where arguably the best asparagus is grown it is also known simply as "grass". Another known colloquial variation of the term, most common in parts of Texas, is "aspar grass" or "asper grass". In the Midwest United States and Appalachia, "spar grass" is a common colloquialism. Asparagus is commonly known in fruit retail circles as "Sparrows Guts", etymologically distinct from the old term "sparrow grass", thus showing convergent language evolution.

It is known in French and Dutch as asperge, in Italian as asparago (old Italian asparagio), in Portuguese as espargo hortense, in Spanish as espárrago, in German as Spargel, in Hungarian as spárga.

In a South Indian language, Kannada, it is known as Ashadhi, Majjigegadde or Sipariberuballi.

Asparagus and urine

Following the consumption of asparagus, the urine of some (or perhaps all) people contains various sulfur-containing compounds, which produce a smell identified by some (or perhaps all) people – the prevalence of smell production and detection is debated.

This phenomenon has been observed since the 18th century, and is caused by (the metabolism of) asparagusic acid and its derivatives, which are present in asparagus but not other vegetables.

History

The effect of eating asparagus on the eater's urine has long been observed:

"asparagus... affects the urine with a foetid smell (especially if cut when they are white) and therefore have been suspected by some physicians as not friendly to the kidneys; when they are older, and begin to ramify, they lose this quality; but then they are not so agreeable"

Marcel Proust claimed that asparagus "...transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume."

Chemical cause

Certain compounds in asparagus are metabolized giving urine a distinctive smell due to various sulfur-containing degradation products, including various thiols, thioesters, and ammonia.

The volatile organic compounds responsible for the smell are identified as:

• methanethiol,
• dimethyl sulfide,
• dimethyl disulfide,
• bis(methylthio)methane,
• dimethyl sulfoxide, and
• dimethyl sulfone.

Subjectively, the first two are the most pungent, while the last two (sulfur-oxidized) give a sweet aroma. A mixture of these compounds form a "reconstituted asparagus urine" odor.

This was first investigated in 1891 by Marceli Nencki, who attributed the smell to methanethiol.

These compounds originate in the asparagus as asparagusic acid and its derivatives, as these are the only sulfur-containing compounds unique to asparagus. As these are more present in young asparagus, this accords with the observation that the smell is more pronounced after eating young asparagus.

Metabolism

The biological mechanism for the production of these compounds is less clear.

The speed of onset of urine smell has been estimated to occur within 15-30 minutes of ingestion.

Prevalence of production and identification

Observational evidence from the 1950s showed that many people did not know about the phenomenon of asparagus urine. There is debate about whether all (or only some) people produce the smell, and whether all (or only some) people identify the smell.

It was originally thought this was because some of the population digested asparagus differently to others, so that some people excreted odorous urine after eating asparagus, and others did not. However, in the 1980s three studies from France, China and Israel published results showing that producing odorous urine from asparagus was a universal human characteristic. The Israeli study found that from their 307 subjects all of those who could smell 'asparagus urine' could detect it in the urine of anyone who had eaten asparagus – whether or not they could detect it in their own. Thus, it is now believed that most people produce the odorous compounds after eating asparagus, but only about 22% of the population have the autosomal genes required to smell them.

References

1. United States Food and Drug Administration (2024). "Daily Value on the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels". FDA. Archived from the original on 2024-03-27. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
2. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Food and Nutrition Board; Committee to Review the Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium (2019). "Chapter 4: Potassium: Dietary Reference Intakes for Adequacy". In Oria, Maria; Harrison, Meghan; Stallings, Virginia A. (eds.). Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. The National Academies Collection: Reports funded by National Institutes of Health. Washington, DC: National Academies Press (US). pp. 120–121. doi:10.17226/25353. ISBN 978-0-309-48834-1. PMID 30844154. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
3. ^ Flora Europaea: Asparagus officinalis
4. Euro+Med Plantbase Project: Asparagus officinalis
5. Germplasm Resources Information Network: Asparagus officinalis
6. Grubben, G.J.H. & Denton, O.A. (2004) Plant Resources of Tropical Africa 2. Vegetables. PROTA Foundation, Wageningen; Backhuys, Leiden; CTA, Wageningen.
7. ^ Blamey, M. & Grey-Wilson, C. (1989). Flora of Britain and Northern Europe. ISBN 0-340-40170-2
8. Flora of NW Europe: Asparagus prostratus
9. Germplasm Resources Information Network: Asparagus prostratus
10. Vaughan, J.G. (1997). The New Oxford Book of Food Plants. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
11. Gout: Causes - MayoClinic.com
12. "BBC - Food - Glossary - 'S'". BBC Online. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
13. Molly Spence. "Asparagus: The King of Vegetables" (DOC). German Agricultural Marketing Board. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
14. United States Department of Agriculture. "World Asparagus Situation & Outlook" (PDF). World Horticultural Trade & U.S. Export Opportunities. Retrieved 2007-02-27.
15. According to Global Trade Atlas and U.S. Census Bureau statistics
16. ^ USDA (2006). Vegetables 2005 Summary. National Agricultural Statistics Service. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
17. "Food and Agriculture Organisation Statistics (FAOSTAT)". Retrieved 2007-11-11.
18. Arbuthnot J (1735), An Essay Concerning the Nature of Aliments 3rd ed., J. Tonson, pp. 64261–262 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
19. From the French " changer mon pot de chambre en un vase de parfum," Du côté de chez Swann, Gallimard, 1988.
20. White RH. (1975). "Occurrence of S-methyl thioesters in urines of humans after they have eaten asparagus". Science. 189: 810–11. doi:10.1126/science.1162354. PMID 1162354.
21. Waring RH, Mitchell SC and Fenwick GR (1987). "The chemical nature of the urinary odour produced by man after asparagus ingestion". Xenobiotica. 17: 1363–1371. PMID 3433805.
22. Food Idiosyncrasies: Beetroot and Asparagus
23. Nencki, Marceli (1891). "Ueber das vorkommen von methylmercaptan im menschlichen harn nach spargelgenuss". Arch Exp Path Pharmak. 28: 206–209.
24. Somer, E. (August 14 2000). "Eau D'Asparagus". WebMD. Retrieved 2006-08-31. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
25. C. RICHER1, N. DECKER2, J. BELIN3, J. L. IMBS2, J. L. MONTASTRUC3 & J. F. GIUDICELLI (May 1989). "Odorous urine in man after asparagus". Br J. Clin. Pharmac.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
26. S. C. MITCHELL (May 1989). "Asparagus and malodorous urine". Br J. Clin. Pharmac.
27. "The scientific chef: asparagus pee". The Guardian. September 23 2005. Retrieved 2007-04-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
28. Hannah Holmes. "Why Asparagus Makes Your Pee Stink". Discover.com.
29. Lison M, Blondheim SH, Melmed RN. (1980). "A polymorphism of the ability to smell urinary metabolites of asparagus". Br Med J. 281: 1676. PMID 7448566.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Asparagus Lime Pie Recipe
• Los Angeles' Most Expensive Asparagus
• PROTAbase on Asparagus officinalis
• Asparagus officinalis - Plants for a Future database entry
• Template:PDFlink - 2005 USDA report
• Asparagus Production Management and Marketing - commercial growing (OSU bulletin)
• The Stockton Asparagus Festival - held annually every April in Stockton, California
• Growing Asparagus Guide to growing Asparagus
• Asparagus Breeding Program at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

• Misplaced Pages articles needing factual verification from July 2007
• Asparagus
• Medicinal plants
• Stem vegetables